NVIDIA Video Codec SDK 10 Brings Few Changes For This Proprietary Library

[phoronix]

Phoronix: NVIDIA Video Codec SDK 10 Brings Few Changes For This Proprietary Library

NVIDIA has quietly released Video Codec SDK 10 as the newest version of their proprietary video encode/decode implementation designed for their GPUs...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NVIDIA-Video-Codec-SDK-10

[tildearrow]

NVIDIA: *improves H.264 encoding capabilities*
Intel: *adds 4:4:4 encoding to Ice Lake*

AMD: *cripples H.264 encoding to add HEVC encoding*

[Spooktra]

NVIDIA: *improves H.264 encoding capabilities*
Intel: *adds 4:4:4 encoding to Ice Lake*

AMD: *cripples H.264 encoding to add HEVC encoding*

You do realize that of the 3, AMD has the least incentive to support hardware encoding. Think about it, AMD has obviously made the decision to compete against Intel by offering more cores at any price point and more cores in general but the problem is that few applications on the desktop really need or use that many cores, compiling code, 3d rendering and video encoding are probably the only ones.

AMD does not want to release anything that will cannibalize sales of their high core count desktop cpu's.

Which is why I think AMD's stock will be a "sell" when Intel release Tiger Lake, Rocket Lake and especially that DG1 Xe. All three are rumored to support hardware decode and encode of 12-bit AV1 and faster and higher quality HEVC and Intel has promised that DG1 will offer super fast QSV encoding, which means that spending big bucks on a high core count cpu, lots of ram, exotic cooling, and a beefy power supply are no longer needed or even desirable.

[OneTimeShot]

NVIDIA: *improves H.264 encoding capabilities*
Intel: *adds 4:4:4 encoding to Ice Lake*

AMD: *cripples H.264 encoding to add HEVC encoding*

Eh? Video encode/decode is nothing more than a little programmable core in a GPU running firmware with a few helpful specialised instructions. H264 is pretty light-weight for modern chips. I doubt whatever you've encountered is anything more than a firmware issue...

[tildearrow]

Eh? Video encode/decode is nothing more than a little programmable core in a GPU running firmware with a few helpful specialised instructions. H264 is pretty light-weight for modern chips. I doubt whatever you've encountered is anything more than a firmware issue...

False. VCE/VCN is a mostly-fixed ASIC.

Read this page: https://github.com/obsproject/obs-am...ding-engine-34

Version 3.4 added support for H265/HEVC encoding at the cost of reduced throughput in H264/AVC and H264/SVC encoding and also losing the ability to encode B-Frames.

[coder]

You do realize that of the 3, AMD has the least incentive to support hardware encoding. Think about it, AMD has obviously made the decision to compete against Intel by offering more cores at any price point and more cores in general but the problem is that few applications on the desktop really need or use that many cores, compiling code, 3d rendering and video encoding are probably the only ones.

AMD does not want to release anything that will cannibalize sales of their high core count desktop cpu's.

Your initial premise is flawed, because it fails to explain why Intel added QSV and continued to improve it, over the many years during which they held a massive lead in the race of CPU performance. Also, during most of that time, AMD had plenty of incentive to leverage the main strength of their APUs - the GPU. Your error is simplistically looking at the current state of affairs through the lens of today's competitive landscape. This situation was many years in the making, during which the competitive landscape was much different than today's.

Beyond that, I'd say the main reason AMD is weak on video encoding support is that they never devoted a lot of hardware resources to it. Their GPUs just don't have the horsepower to do large-scale video transcoding - they can handle realtime encoding of a couple of streams and that's it. So, they don't have the same demand from customers who are using Intel and Nvidia GPUs in that way.